You are lovingly and escstatically invited to the first ever Sunday School specifically in honor of the sacred legacies of our Queer Black Ancestors. Sunday School is a monthly session that celebrates the spiritual legacy of Queer Black Ancestors wi…

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p.j. sent me this graphic that shows a number of things that happen in 1 minute. She found it at a website that gives insurance quotes, oddly enough, but in general the sources don't appear to me to be ones that would be prone to industry-friendly bias:

NOTE: Readers are making some really interesting points about the representations here in the comments, so check 'em out.

Friday, January 29, 2010

From the Department of African & African American Studies at Duke University

On the Crisis in Haiti

We are humbled by the tribulations of the people of Haiti. At this time of destruction, suffering, death, and survival, we offer our condolences, our prayers, and our aid.

At the same time, as scholars of the African and African-American experience, we are dismayed by the inhumanity of those who have used this tragedy as an opportunity to espouse groundless explanations for Haiti's troubles. The events unfolding in the Caribbean are the result of neither a supernatural curse nor of a cultural pathology. And we hope that as the relief efforts currently underway turn their focus to rebuilding, Haiti's international partners will draw more appropriate lessons from the history of Haiti's unique predicament in the world of nations.

Until 1791, Haitians suffered under one of the most brutal regimes of slavery ever known to mankind, generating astronomical profits for France at an equally astronomical cost in African lives.

Yet the enslaved Africans of Haiti accomplished the first successful slave revolution in recorded history. In its commitment to human equality, it exceeded that of the American Revolution. With donations of money and arms, Haiti helped to liberate what is now Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, and Panama from the Spanish Empire. For such reasons, Haiti has long served as an inspiration to the enslaved and the oppressed. This inspiration is likely the source of the name of Durham's own Hayti neighborhood, like that of its counterparts across the United States.

And Haiti paid a dear price for its exemplary ambition to freedom. For example, as a precondition of diplomatic recognition in 1825, Haiti paid France an indemnity equivalent to roughly $22 billion in today's dollars, burdening the Haitian state with a crippling debt for generations. In fear of the example set by Haiti, the US denied diplomatic recognition until 1863, for over half a century. Thus, the slave-holding powers laid siege to the island nation. Despite an official economic blockade against Haiti by the US and the European powers, the Haitian peasantry secured a profitable place in the 19th-century coffee market. However, the US occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934, 20th-century patterns of land acquisition by foreign corporations, a series of US- and French-backed dictators, and shifts in the global economy have set Haiti back, without, however, extinguishing the enormous hope, energy, and skills that Haitians bring to the building of a new future.

The Haitian people are heirs to a stunningly beautiful culture of collective labor, self-help, spiritual wisdom, musical performance, and indefatigable perseverance. The people of Haiti, their energetic diaspora, and their friends abroad can and must roll up their sleeves and work together for a better tomorrow.

Duke's Department of African and African American Studies commits itself to making the gifts and the travails of the Haitian people a continued inspiration to the entire world. With Haiti we stand united in the pursuit of clean water, nourishing food, life-sustaining shelter, good health care, and freedom for all. At this moment of crisis, we focus our prayers, our donations, and our efforts on saving the lives of our beloved Haitian brothers and sisters.

The National Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual is saddened by the tragic earthquake in Haiti. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Haiti, in particular the women and children. We know that during times of natural disaster the safety of women and children are often jeopardized.

We have been in contact with our Sister organizations that work specifically on behalf of women and children in Haiti and know that they desperately need your assistance. We have also received calls from individuals that want to help in some way.

Below is a list of options to provide assistance. Please note that although there will be many calls to donate to large well-known organizations that offer aide in times of crisis; SCESA believes that it is especially important to support organizations that work specifically in their community. Further, the most effective use of money might be in organizations with a more focused mission and smaller overhead.

Therefore, in the spirit of helping to ensure the safety of women and children in Haiti, whether you give time, money, food, clothing or other resources, we ask you to donate to Haitian Women's organizations.

Here are a few Haitian organizations from the community that are doing great work directly with Haiti:

Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees

Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, Lakou New York, and MUDHA Movement of Dominican Haitian Women are organizing an immediate delivery of first aid relief. MUDHA is traveling to the Dominican/Haitian border, looking at how to reach affected areas.

To make a financial tax-deductible donation to Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, Lakou New York, and MUDHA Movement of Dominican Haitian Women, so that they may take supplies to Haiti, please mail donations to:

Dwa Fanm means "Women's Rights" in Haitian Creole. Dwa Fanm is committed to empowering every woman and girl with the freedom to define and control their own lives. Through advocacy and grassroots programs, Dwa Fanm works to end all forms of violence, discrimination and injustice in the U.S. and in Haiti.

The Haiti Relief Task Force composed of over 15 local and national organizations has been revived to bring desperate relief to millions of our brothers and sisters who are suffering at this time. Marleine Bastien, Executive Director of Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami, Inc./Haitian Women of Miami said: "It is heartwrenching to see so many men, women, and little babies lying on the streets with broken limbs, screaming and yet, no help is coming. These are God's children, they need our support now. It is a matter of life or death!"

On line donation can be made to FANM, Inc.: www.fanm.org for information please call Fania Innocent at (305)756-8050. Checks made to "Haiti Relief Fund" can also be sent to FANM, Inc. at 181 N.E. 82 Street, Miami, Florida 33138.

The Lambi Fund

Its goal is to help strengthen civil society as a necessary foundation of democracy and development. The fund channels financial and other resources to community-based organizations that promote the social and economic empowerment of the Haitian people.

Lambi fund of Haiti is not a first responder, but a second responder. Lambi Fund will be there to help Haiti rebuild long after the relief service providers leave.

Once upon a time visionary lovebirds Alexis and Julia were apart for 12 whole days :(, counting the seconds until they could be in the same place and envision revolutionary brilliance together again... Alexis decided to make the countdown liveable and poetic by writing daily love poems to Julia. This year for valentine's day Lex has decided to publish her infinite love in the form of tiny handmade booklets which can be yours for a sweet donation of 14 delicious dollars or more between now and valentines day!

Who's afraid of the Angry Black Woman? Well BE AFRAID because Angry Black Women are speaking our minds and transforming the world in the service of our vision. Oppression beware the well-directed rage of Black feminism!

This week for your listening and reading pleasure we have the ANGRY BLACK WOMAN edition of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Podcast Series! As always, we start with the brilliance of our ancestors...meditating on the poetic of rage in June Jordan's angry letters to racist editors and including reflections from Nia Wilson, Mai'a Williams, Moya Bailey, Daria Bannerman and the young visionaries at New Horizon's Alternative School...plus as always music that rocks (including a track from the genuis Jon Anonymous project by Durham's own Shirlette Ammons!)

And while you're at it...download or subscribe to the podcasts on itunes (search "brokenbeautiful press" in podcasts and we'll be all up in your eardrum!)

And just because my anger about racism, and sexism and gendered violence is based in my deep deep love for YOU and the world we deserve...BrokenBeautiful Press is happy to present The Little Black (Feminist) Book Series Volume 1: RAGE. Including that essay on June Jordan's Angry Letters and 4 other classic angry blogposts from the thatlittleblackbook.blogspot.com. It's pocket-sized in case you need to hand it to someone who clearly doesn't get it. Get one on deck with a donation of 15 bucks or more all proceeds go to the Community Sustained Educational programming from Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind!1

Be sure to note that you want the RAGE book and be sure to include your correct mailing address. (Or just holler at me if you have the divine insight to live in Durham.) There are only 20 so get yours soon :)

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Under strict loving soft encouragement from the QBG I am writing us a love letter. And the things I love about ourselves and myself and weselves and multiple selves on multiple plains/planes.

The first part of y/our love letter of course is a love letter to our inability to do the assignment , any assignment as it is asked.

When I started this letter I had as I usually do grand plans of combining it with a stinging commentary on Haiti/an admonishment to American progressive laziness/ response to stupid stupid lady who knows nothing about black new media feminism/and a love letter to all of you I carry with me .

I think I started with the idea of combining them because of of something Delux wrote that I the idea that our very exisistance is multi tasked . While hers is of course based on the Dubois talented tenth Not just inter sectional as in existing , but that every breath or motion exists in our bodies and lives at multiple sometimes oppositional ends.

and that attempts to sustain this existence in any form are transgressive always or confrontational or violent where they are none.

One of the things I love about me is my appearance to be anywhere BUT my own country it seems.

I am Senegalese/Creole/Dominican/Brazilian/Carolina Geechee/ DEFINITELY west indian but NOT Guyanese

and Haitian

I may say it's the french but it's often before I open my mouth.

And it is often well lets be realistic most of the time that my radical self screams and chafes and just rages at the idea of being categorized without my permission , my ever awkward self demanding that peopel recognize teh one thing I often feel I have to call my own

but my nun /self the self that is always trying to be open and good and present

that self sees people looking for home for familiarity for knowledge in you in unfamiliar places.

From kids from your hood in the museum

foreigners well damn near everywhere

people find home in you even when you can't find it in yourself

i love that you fixate on words on ideas on concepts . That this letter is called a love letter to looting because you jsut can;t satnd that it's being used to describe people trying not to die.

Because you feel it in the pit of your stomach that it's what we have been called all our lives.

Looting someones "spot" by daring to be brighterLooting someones comfort by daring to be hurt at a slightLooting someone's success by daring to point out flawsLooting the movement by daring to not work for free.Looting your own future by daring to survive instead of " trying to do something better with your life"

Because in the end no one pays your bills feeds your family hears your cry makes your Damoclean choices

and because most off you just know it's looking looking for a way to organize a world that does not believe in you for your proper existence. That we understand that often being incomprehensible is a nice way of being dismissible

I think That is what I thought of when I read Lex's email and facebook post. That at the crux of it most of the problem isn;t actually ignorance, or meanness but shear incomprehensibility.

That we write create our media and push our lives in ways that are deemed " small"

because none of those women can imagine having to constantly reclaim your life your humanity every generation every new birth .

That sometimes yelling at Rupert Murdoch , or snarling at each other about whose incharge

can never mean as much as turning to saying .

"I see you , I hear you , and there is no wrong in your existence"

Even as you try to make yourself understand that.

I love that you even dare to try.

I love that you greet things and developments that match your Cassandra like propensity for prediction with equal measure of curse and hug. That you enjoy being right without relishing it,

I love that you erased that last sentence , You're learning!

I truly love your relish in being wrong . Because you wish to learn, you are open, you are fearfilled and that gives you courage.

I love you not because you are perfect or a specimen or a goddess but because you are you

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Local Decatur merchants and restaurants will raise for money for the earthquake victims in Haiti on Monday, Feb. 1. The following businesses have agreed to donate a portion of their proceeds to the American Red Cross. Participating businesses include:

Brick Store Pub

Cakes and Ale (will be closed for a private party, but is still donating a portion of its proceeds)

The submission deadline for the next Catharine Stimpson Prize is fast approaching! We seek the best of feminist scholarship by emerging scholars for this award. Please submit by March 1 or encourage those who are eligible to do so.

The Catharine Stimpson Prize for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship

Submission deadline: March 1, 2010

Named in honor of the founding editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, the Catharine Stimpson Prize is designed to recognize excellence and innovation in the work of emerging feminist scholars and is awarded biannually to the best paper in an international competition. Leading feminist scholars from around the globe will select the winner. The prizewinning paper will be published in Signs, and the author will be provided an honorarium of $1,000. All papers submitted for the Stimpson Prize will be considered for peer review and possible publication in Signs.

Eligibility: Feminist scholars in the early years of their careers (less than seven years since receipt of the terminal degree) are invited to submit papers for the Stimpson Prize. Papers may be on any topic that falls within the broad rubric of interdisciplinary feminist scholarship.

The Southern Education Foundation (SEF), www.southerneducation.org, is reaching out to tomorrow's leaders, through the 2010 Southern Education Leadership Initiative. We are seeking outstanding upperclassmen, graduate and law school students to apply for this wonderful opportunity.

SEF is now accepting applications through March 19, 2010.

The aims of the Southern Education Leadership Initiative are to: expose the South's best and brightest college students to contemporary strategies mounted by the policy, non-profit, foundation and business sectors to improve education opportunity and quality; provide such students with inspiration, information, and a top quality work experience at leading organizations involved in cutting edge policy and practice efforts to address education problems; develop students' research and leadership skills by providing a forum for independent research and study and for the sharing of knowledge gathered and lessons learned with peers on campus, in the community or the workplace; and Students will be placed in leading policy institutes, non-profit organizations, foundations, and corporations, helping to build awareness of the interdependence of groups and communities, and the need to improve public education for low-income students as a means to enhance the quality of civic life, democratic participation, and economic growth.

Since 2004, 103 students have been placed at various sites including CARE USA, Georgia Pacific Foundation, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, Foundation for the Mid South, Center for Women Policy Studies, Academy for Educational Development, Southern Regional Education Board, Assisi Foundation, and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. Through this effort, SEF is exposing the next generation of leaders to opportunities to use their talents in service to the public interest.

In response to wide demand, NWSA 2010 builds on conversations that began in Atlanta at the 2009 conference. Difficult Dialogues II will explore a range of concepts and issues that remain under theorized and under examined in the field of women's studies.

Although the problem of omissions, silences, and distortions in women's studies has been analyzed for decades, too often feminist scholarship continues to theorize on the basis of hegemonic frameworks, false universals, and a narrow range of lived experiences. The legitimate terrain of feminist theory, inquiry, and politics remains contested.

The Difficult Dialogues theme builds on Johnnella Butler's essays (beginning with her 1989 article in the Women's Review of Books) about the contested relationship among and between black studies, ethnic studies, and women's studies in the US academy. Butler pinpointed a reluctance to engage questions of gender and sexuality in black studies and ethnic studies, and a reluctance to engage with questions of race and class in women's studies.

NWSA 2010 identifies several thematic areas in which ongoing and new difficult dialogues are urgently needed:

Indigenous Feminisms: Theories, Methods, Politics

Complicating the Queer

The Politics of Nations

"Outsider" Feminisms

The Critical and the Creative

NWSA Faculty Development Workshop

Civic Engagement in the Women's and Gender Studies Classroom: Power and Privilege at the Intersections of Race, Class, and Nation

Hosted by the National Women's Studies Association with generous support from the Teagle Foundation, this workshop is designed to generate critical reflection and discussion among scholars and teachers in Women's and Gender Studies in order to better understand the actual practices and effects of civic engagement and to improve student learning. For the purposes of this workshop, "civic engagement" is defined as individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern from feminist and intersectional perspectives. Civic engagement can take many forms, from individual voluntarism to organizational social justice work to electoral participation.

Held during the NWSA annual conference in Denver, this workshop is designed to explore civic engagement in light of issues of power and privilege and to apply intersectional analyses of race, class, nation, sexuality, gender, and globalization to teaching about this important topic. Participants will develop, apply, and assess model civic engagement pedagogies in partnership with the grant's existing working group members and must be committed to applying quantitative evaluation tools in their Spring 2011 courses and reporting those results to NWSA.

Who Should ApplyFull-time faculty in women's studies, ethnic studies, or related fields may apply. NWSA especially invites applications from women of color faculty and junior faculty interested in developing civic engagement pedagogies based on intersectional analyses.

FMS at Syracuse announces two semester long postdoctoral mentoring fellowships for the academic year 2010-2011. FMS at Syracuse is part of the Future of Minority Studies (FMS) national research project (www.FMSProject.Cornell.edu), a mobile think tank designed to facilitate focused and productive discussion across disciplines on a defined set of questions about the role of identity in the production of knowledges and in the formation of social justice movements.

FMS @ Syracuse is housed in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies atSyracuse University, and focuses specifically on questions related to minoritizedfeminist identities and epistemologies in the context of national and transnational justice and politics. We invite applications from scholars working on intellectualprojects in these areas. A mentoring fellowship entails working for one semesterwith an FMS faculty mentor towards a scholarly publication (journal essay, book chapter, book manuscript, etc.). Other expectations include involvement in theactivities of the WGS department, and presenting one public lecture on thecandidate's area of expertise.

Candidates may apply to work with one of the following Syracuse faculty:

Please send in electronic format as attachments the following:· a letter of application· a description of the publication project identifying the faculty mentor you wish to work with· a CV· two letters of reference

Please e-mail your application material, with Subject Heading "FMS @Syracuse Postdoctoral Fellowships," to fmsproject@cornell.eduPlease specify the semester (Fall 2010 or Spring 2011) you prefer to be in residence at SU.

Application deadline: March 1, 2010FMS @ SU is funded through a generous grant from the Office of the Chancellor atSyracuse University.

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BGLHer Tiffany alerted me to this story. The pictures are too graphic to post on this blog, but if you click the link to the original story you will see them. It has been discovered that the young man, Jordan Miles, was totally innocent and wasn't carrying any weapons or guns. Unfortunately he's had to shave his head because officers tore a handful of locks out.

Jordan Miles before the attack

Excerpt of article by Pittsburgh Tribune Review…

"The mother of a high school senior who performed for first lady Michelle Obama while she was in Pittsburgh in September says her son did not deserve to be "brutally attacked" by police officers outside his home earlier this month.

"Jordan is an excellent kid. He's very quiet and takes school seriously," said his mother, Terez Miles, 38. "He knows nothing about drugs, drug dealing or anything like that. He didn't deserve this."

Jordan Miles, 18, a senior at the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts School, Downtown, alleges that three Pittsburgh police officers beat him during an arrest outside his house on Tioga Street in Homewood about 11 p.m. on Jan. 12. …

Miles suffered a swollen face, hair ripped from his scalp and a twig jabbed through his gum during the incident, his mother said. Miles has not returned to CAPA, where he is an honors student and plays the viola, his mother said.

Miles played his instrument for the first lady and the spouses of the delegates of the Group of 20 economic summit when they visited CAPA."

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Hundreds of thousands of people are living and sleeping on the ground in Port au Prince. Many have no homes, their homes destroyed by the earthquake. I am sleeping on the ground as well – surrounded by nurses, doctors and humanitarian workers who sleep on the ground every night. The buildings that are not on the ground have big cracks in them and fallen sections so no one should be sleeping inside.

There are sheet cities everywhere. Not tent cities. Sheet cities.

Old people and babies and everyone else under sheets held up by ropes hooked onto branches pounded into the ground.

With the rainy season approaching, one of the emergency needs of Haitians is to get tents. I have seen hundreds of little red topped Coleman pup tents among the sheet shelters. There are tents in every space, from soccer fields and parks to actually in the streets. There is a field with dozens of majestic beige tents from Qatar marked Islamic Relief. But real tents are outnumbered by sheet shelters by a ratio of 100 to 1.

Though helicopters thunder through the skies, actual relief of food and water and shelter remains mimimal to non-existent in most neighborhoods.

Haitians are helping Haitians. Young men have organized into teams to guard communities of homeless families. Women care for their own children as well as others now orphaned. Tens of thousands are missing and presumed dead.

The scenes of destruction boggle the mind. The scenes of homeless families, overwhelmingly little children, crush the heart.

But hope remains. Haitians say and pray that God must have a plan. Maybe Haiti will be rebuilt in a way that allows all Haitians to participate and have a chance at a dignified life with a home, a school, and a job.

One young Haitian man said, "One good sign is the solidarity of the world. Muslim doctors, Jewish doctors, Christian doctors all come to help us. We see children in Gaza collecting toys for Haitian children. It looks very bad right now, but this is a big opportunity for the world and Haiti to change and do good together."